


what you want to be

by bookhobbit



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/F, F/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're Conina, daughter of Cohen, and you can do anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what you want to be

**Author's Note:**

> A little snippet. I wrote this for GNU Terry Pratchett because I wanted to do something with Conina and now I am having thoughts about Conina/Herrena, how can I do this to myself.
> 
> I don't know why I'm surprised though because "I dunno they don't really talk in canon but their personalities would be AWESOME together" is apparently my Type of ship. I mean...that's essentially Ponder/Rincewind too and you've all seen me with that.
> 
> ...anyway, yeah. I hope you're all doing all right today.

It’s like this: you have never been anyone you didn’t choose to be. It takes a long time to realize that; it’s Rincewind who helps you figure it out, much as you’re loath to admit it, mostly because he was so very much choosing to be what he was.

The thing about Rincewind is that he’s too much like you. Neither of you are very nice people. You could use some niceness in your life, just for a while, so that’s Nijel, your niceness. You teach him to be a hero and you stay with him until it gets to be too much, until it feels like drowning in fluffy clouds. Then you leave. He understands: marriage and permanence, those are not your ways, they belong to a life you will never have. And, really, don’t want anymore. You’ve grown up.

Growing up is accepting what you want and who you are. Growing up is knowing that you do not have to give up one thing to be another. Growing up is realizing that you can be Conina, Barbarian Hero, and Conina, Famous Hairdresser, all at once. That you don’t have to put down the sword to pick up the scissors.

You could have given it up. You could have put down the sword. The reason you never did, the reason you felt like you couldn’t, is that really, you didn’t want to. You’re Conina, daughter of Cohen, and you don’t want to leave that behind. Your father left you with genes you value and memories you treasure; he left you with a past that feels solid, an anchor. Your mother told you all your life that you didn’t have to give anything up, but it takes you a long time to listen.

So you realize, once the whole business with the Sourcerer is over, that what you are is important. It’s part of you. You’re Conina, daughter of Cohen, and you can do anything. You believe that, deep down. Anything you put your mind to. But you’ve never been able to stop being a hero and you know now that it’s because your mother was right. Because you were holding on to her self with the hand that wasn’t try to pry it out of your own grasp.

You are Conina, daughter of Cohen, barbarian hero, famous hairdresser. You don’t open up a shop, but you put on your best dress and sit in Hide Park and offer hairstyling in the poshest voice you know, and pretty soon all the famous ladies are talking about you. The mysterious Conina, they say. Genius with the hair curlers.

It’s all right until one day you start itching for real life, for adventure, so you drop out of that life and onto a boat that takes you straight out to Klatch, and that’s where you meet Herrena.

Herrena is…something else. She’s older than you - maybe ten years - and her hair can’t be natural, you’re sure of that, and she wears sensible clothes and sensible shoes and she smiles like a challenge you can’t pass up.

"Got any jobs on?" she asks casually, glancing at your sword.

"Not at the moment, but I’m looking," you say.

"Well, I’m after Diome, Mistress of the Night, in a moment. Old rival, you know? I think we might be able to get Vena the Raven-Haired in on the whole deal. Interested?"

You smile, and you go with her, and you meet Vena the Raven-Haired, who’s perhaps the most famous heroine to ever live, and later when the whole adventure is over it’s just you and Herrena on a rock and she kisses you and you think, yes, this is another kind of nice.

Eventually you get tired of fighting and bleeding and not having adequate hair care, so you go back to Ankh and pick up in Hide Park again. The ladies gush over you and ask you where you’ve been as they escort you back to their houses for their hairstyles, “I nearly died without you at this ball, darling! The replacement wasn’t anything like up to your usual standards” and you know, then, that this will work. That you can be both, and that you are enough.

You tell the ladies some exciting stories while they’re getting their hair done. You can tell they don’t believe you, but it’s all right. You know the truth.

Your sense of self is a secret you carry nestled like a fire in your hand, and you know you will never be lost.


End file.
